The First Year

Today (November 4th 2013) I celebrate one year since becoming the youngest attorney-at-law in my country.

When I turned 18 I received a silver pen and the friend giving me the present said “you should write with it when you become an attorney-at-law”. I proudly write with it for a year.

I insistently asked to go to school just after I turned 6 and I had started writing way before and copied all the capital letters texts I found in the house. That was after I wrote on the walls.

During the 10th grade I decided to study in the US, but I returned after one year to graduate high school in Romania. There were opportunities to stay, but I believe in destiny. On my way back I stopped at Georgetown University for a course of Politics and Law (I was 15, the youngest participant and also got awarded a scholarship) and at University of Illinois to follow another course (same story, full scholarship).

After high school I moved from a medium size town in the heart of Transylvania to the capital and the biggest city in the country, where I qualified after an selective Economics and Grammar exam for full state tuition at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bucharest.

To rush through events, I was not satisfied with studying thousands of pages without having explained the practical sens of it, essential for my well being. I spend the summer after the 1st year of university in US. Second year went fast and all I remember is that I fell in love with Public International Law.

It was mandatory to have an internship completed to pass to 3rd year. I started at a top 10 law firm, then I was awarded an internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After completion, I returned to the law firm where I asked permission to continue the internship. Not only I was allowed to stay for the rest of the summer and got paid for the internship, I also got my first job offer on my 20th birthday.

Then something happened overnight, like a metamorphosis, something spectacular even for myself. My teachers noticed it. I changed acquaintances group, my interests changed, a new world opened to me.

During the 3rd year of Law School I attended all seminars and courses, worked part time, became the Fundraising Director of a local United Nations values promoting organization and the Club Service Director of the Rotaract Club I belonged to, I was organizing huge diplomatic meetings, charity balls, seminars, summer schools, participating to moots. The day became short.

In the 4th year of university I published my first law article in a tradition law review and fell in love with Private International Law. Followed my plan to attend one academic event a month and one course abroad a year.

[…]

The Bar Exam was a tool that took me to a totally new level, with other requirements and responsibilities.

My motivation was small things.

The credits are of my teachers, persons who guided me in the path of understanding law, who facilitated the playing with the concepts, who emphasized the importance of thinking over memorizing.

It has been exactly one year since I passed the Bar exam, a year of accumulating, of absorbing information and skills, a year of long hours, of reading, of training and specializing, of fighting with myself. It is the halfway to being a definitive lawyer and if I draw a line and look back I can say it was more rewarding than I have imagined it. Most of all I look ahead, to ongoing studies, to the thirst of knowledge, to the final Bar exam next year, to further articles published in law reviews, to university teaching, to professional achievements, to evolution.

Currently Reading

October 2017:The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
The Secret Life of the Mind by Mariano Sigman
Minima Moralia by Andrei Plesu
A History of The Middle East by Peter Mansfield
Conde Nast 20 years Anniversary Edition